Kevin Curley met Matthew Pike,
the Chief Executive of the Scarman Trust, in 2005. They discussed
the Manchester crisis and Scarman's intentions.
Matthew Pike wants to use the expertise of Scarman to support
neighbourhood groups and community activists in both urban and
rural areas. However, he does not see Scarman providing generalist
infrastructure support and leadership of the sort provided by NAVCA
members. He said that the Scarman Trust will compete if necessary,
but his strong preference is to work in partnership with NAVCA
members.
It was agreed that where a local authority in the future is looking
to invite competitive tenders from the VCS, as occurred in
Manchester, we would seek to persuade them to separate funding for
neighbourhood work from funding for generalist infrastructure
support.
The potential to involve the other member networks of the Community
Alliance (which consists of Scarman, bassac, Community Matters and
Development Trusts Association) in the contracting process was also
noted. This could help to create a strong unified position across
the voluntary and community sectors. The Alliance is backed by the
Home Office, and by the Scarman Trust for their work on Community
Service Agreements.
Finally, it was agreed that the options facing Scarman and NAVCA
members in a local area where competitive tendering is taking place
were as follows:
- we could seek to persuade the funder to offer more than one
contract which would recognise the specialisms of different VCS
organisations
- we could work together and put in a joint bid
- we could compete if only one contract was on offer
If your local authority is planning to go down a competitive
tendering route it is vital to act early and to seek to influence
the specification. NAVCA and the Scarman Trust have agreed to have
a conversation about any area where there could be a shared
interest between a NAVCA member and the Scarman Trust. There was a
lot of learning from the Manchester situation.
Rob Arnold, the Chief Executive of Voluntary Action Manchester,
wrote two papers which are invaluable for any LIO Chief Officer
facing these challenges. These are available in our
competitive
tendering section.
NACVS also agreed to work with Scarman on efforts to secure the
large sums contained in 'dormant accounts' for use by the VCS. This
has the potential to bring £1.5bn into the VCS in coming years. A
contact list for Scarman Trust Regional Directors is available
on our website.